Phagspa script
Encyclopedia
The 'Phags-pa script was an alphabet
designed by the Tibetan
Lama 'Gro-mgon Chos-rgyal 'Phags-pa (Drogön Chögyal Phagpa
) for Yuan
emperor Kublai Khan
, as a unified script for the literary languages of the Yuan Dynasty
.
Widespread use was limited to about a hundred years during the Yuan Dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming Dynasty
. The documentation of its use provides linguists clues about the changes in Chinese, Tibetan
, Mongolian
, and neighboring languages during the Yuan era.
-based Mongolian alphabet
is not a perfect fit for Middle Mongolian
, and it would be impractical to extend it to a language with a very different phonology like Chinese. Therefore, during the Yuan Dynasty
(ca. 1269), Kublai Khan
asked ´Phags-pa to design a new alphabet for use by the whole empire. ´Phags-pa extended his native Tibetan script
(an Indic script
) to encompass Mongol and Chinese, evidently Central Plains standard. The resulting 38 letters have been known by several descriptive names, such as "square script" based on their shape, but today are primarily known as the 'Phags-pa alphabet.
Despite its origin, the script was written vertically (top to bottom) like the previous Mongolian scripts. It did not receive wide acceptance and fell into disuse with the collapse of the Yuan dynasty in 1368. After this it was mainly used as a phonetic gloss for Mongolians learning Chinese characters. It was also used as one of the scripts on Tibetan currency in the twentieth century, as script for Tibetan seal inscriptions from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century and for inscriptions on the entrance doors of Tibetan monasteries.
and a full alphabet. The letters of a 'Phags-pa syllable are linked together so that they form syllabic blocks.
'Phags-pa was written in a variety of graphic forms. The standard form (top, at right) was blocky, but a "Tibetan" form (bottom) was even more so, consisting almost entirely of straight orthogonal lines and right angles. A "seal script
" form (Chinese 蒙古篆字 "Mongolian Seal Script"), used for imperial seals and the like, was more elaborate, with squared sinusoidal lines and spirals.
Korean records that state that hangul
was based on an "Old Seal Script", 古篆字, which Gary Ledyard believes to be 'Phags-pa and a reference to its Chinese name 蒙古篆字 . (See origin of hangul
.) However, it is the simpler standard form of the alphabet that is the closer graphic match.
. They are ordered according to the Chinese philological tradition of the 36 initials.
Standard in July, 2006 with the release of version 5.0.
The Unicode block for 'Phags-pa is U+A840–U+A877. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
designed by the Tibetan
Tibetan people
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet, which is mostly in the People's Republic of China. They number 5.4 million and are the 10th largest ethnic group in the country. Significant Tibetan minorities also live in India, Nepal, and Bhutan...
Lama 'Gro-mgon Chos-rgyal 'Phags-pa (Drogön Chögyal Phagpa
Drogön Chögyal Phagpa
Zhogön Qögyä Pagba, Zhogoin Qoigyai Phagspa or Drogön Chögyal Phagpa , born Lochö Gyäcän or Lochoi Gyaicain , was the fifth leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. He became the first vice-king of Tibet and played an important political role...
) for Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
emperor Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
, as a unified script for the literary languages of the Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
.
Widespread use was limited to about a hundred years during the Yuan Dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
. The documentation of its use provides linguists clues about the changes in Chinese, Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
, Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
, and neighboring languages during the Yuan era.
History
The UyghurUyghur alphabet
Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, administered by China, by the Uyghur people. It is a language with a long literary tradition, and has been written using numerous writing systems through time...
-based Mongolian alphabet
Mongolian alphabet
Many alphabets have been devised for the Mongolian language over the centuries, and from a variety of scripts. The oldest, called simply the Mongolian script, has been the predominant script during most of Mongolian history, and is still in active use today in the Inner Mongolia region of China...
is not a perfect fit for Middle Mongolian
Middle Mongolian language
Middle Mongolian is an ancient Mongolic language formerly spoken in the Mongol Empire and later on in Greater Mongolia during the 13th to at least the early 15th century.-Definition and historical precessors:...
, and it would be impractical to extend it to a language with a very different phonology like Chinese. Therefore, during the Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
(ca. 1269), Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
asked ´Phags-pa to design a new alphabet for use by the whole empire. ´Phags-pa extended his native Tibetan script
Tibetan script
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
(an Indic script
Brahmic family
The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
) to encompass Mongol and Chinese, evidently Central Plains standard. The resulting 38 letters have been known by several descriptive names, such as "square script" based on their shape, but today are primarily known as the 'Phags-pa alphabet.
Despite its origin, the script was written vertically (top to bottom) like the previous Mongolian scripts. It did not receive wide acceptance and fell into disuse with the collapse of the Yuan dynasty in 1368. After this it was mainly used as a phonetic gloss for Mongolians learning Chinese characters. It was also used as one of the scripts on Tibetan currency in the twentieth century, as script for Tibetan seal inscriptions from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century and for inscriptions on the entrance doors of Tibetan monasteries.
Forms
Unlike the ancestral Tibetan script, all 'Phags-pa letters are written in temporal order (that is, /CV/ is written in the order C–V for all vowels) and in-line (that is, the vowels are not diacritics). However, vowel letters retain distinct initial forms, and short /a/ is not written except initially, making 'Phags-pa transitional between an abugidaAbugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
and a full alphabet. The letters of a 'Phags-pa syllable are linked together so that they form syllabic blocks.
'Phags-pa was written in a variety of graphic forms. The standard form (top, at right) was blocky, but a "Tibetan" form (bottom) was even more so, consisting almost entirely of straight orthogonal lines and right angles. A "seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
" form (Chinese 蒙古篆字 "Mongolian Seal Script"), used for imperial seals and the like, was more elaborate, with squared sinusoidal lines and spirals.
Korean records that state that hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
was based on an "Old Seal Script", 古篆字, which Gary Ledyard believes to be 'Phags-pa and a reference to its Chinese name 蒙古篆字 . (See origin of hangul
Origin of hangul
Hangul is the native script of Korea, created in the mid fifteenth century under King Sejong, as both a complement and an alternative to the logographic Sino-Korean hanja...
.) However, it is the simpler standard form of the alphabet that is the closer graphic match.
Letters
Following are the initials of the 'Phags-pa script as presented in the Menggu ZiyunMenggu Ziyun
Menggu Ziyun ["Rimes in Mongol Script"] is a 14th century rime dictionary of Chinese as written in the 'Phags-pa script that was used during the Yuan Dynasty . The only surviving examplar of this dictionary is an 18th century manuscript copy that belonged to Stephen Wootton Bushell , and is now...
. They are ordered according to the Chinese philological tradition of the 36 initials.
| No. | Name | Phonetic value | 'Phags-pa letter | 'Phags-pa Initial | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 見 jiàn | *[k] | g- | ||
| 2 | 溪 qī | *[kʰ] | kh- | ||
| 3 | 群 qún | *[ɡ] | k- | ||
| 4 | 疑 yí | *[ŋ] | ng- | ||
| 5 | 端 duān | *[t] | d- | ||
| 6 | 透 tòu | *[tʰ] | th- | ||
| 7 | 定 dìng | *[d] | t- | ||
| 8 | 泥 ní | *[n] | n- | ||
| 9 | 知 zhī | *[ʈ] | j- | ||
| 10 | 徹 chè | *[ʈʰ] | ch- | ||
| 11 | 澄 chéng | *[ɖ] | c- | ||
| 12 | 娘 niáng | *[ɳ] | ny- | ||
| 13 | 幫 bāng | *[p] | b- | ||
| 14 | 滂 pāng | *[pʰ] | ph- | ||
| 15 | 並 bìng | *[b] | p- | ||
| 16 | 明 míng | *[m] | m- | ||
| 17 | 非 fēi | *[p̪] | f- | Normal form of the letter fa | |
| 18 | 敷 fū | *[p̪ʰ] | f¹- | Variant form of the letter fa | |
| 19 | 奉 fèng | *[b̪] | f- | Normal form of the letter fa | |
| 20 | 微 wēi | *[ɱ] | w- | Letter wa represents [v] | |
| 21 | 精 jīng | *[ts] | dz- | ||
| 22 | 清 qīng | *[tsʰ] | tsh- | ||
| 23 | 從 cóng | *[dz] | ts- | ||
| 24 | 心 xīn | *[s] | s- | ||
| 25 | 邪 xié | *[z] | z- | ||
| 26 | 照 zhào | *[tɕ] | j- | ||
| 27 | 穿 chuān | *[tɕʰ] | ch- | ||
| 28 | 床 chuáng | *[dʑ] | c- | ||
| 29 | 審 shěn | *[ɕ] | sh¹- | Variant form of the letter sha | |
| 30 | 禪 chán | *[ʑ] | sh- | Normal form of the letter sha | |
| 31 | 曉 xiǎo | *[x] | h- | Normal form of the letter ha | |
| 32 | 匣 xiá | *[ɣ] | x- | ||
| h¹- | Variant form of the letter ha | ||||
| 33 | 影 yǐng | *[ʔ] | ·- | glottal stop Glottal stop The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of... |
|
| y- | Normal form of the letter ya | ||||
| 34 | 喻 yù | *[j] | ʼ- | null initial | |
| y¹- | Variant form of the letter ya | ||||
| 35 | 來 lái | *[l] | l- | ||
| 36 | 日 rì | *[ɲ] | zh- |
See also
- Brahmic familyBrahmic familyThe Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
- Mongolian writing systems
- Origin of HangulOrigin of hangulHangul is the native script of Korea, created in the mid fifteenth century under King Sejong, as both a complement and an alternative to the logographic Sino-Korean hanja...
- Mongol elements in Western medieval artMongol elements in Western medieval artMongol elements in Western medieval art can be seen in European works of art ranging from the 13th to the 15th century. They encompass artistic areas such as painting and textile manufacture, and mainly consist in the European use of Mongol 'Phags-pa script in Medieval European art, as well as the...
- Menggu ZiyunMenggu ZiyunMenggu Ziyun ["Rimes in Mongol Script"] is a 14th century rime dictionary of Chinese as written in the 'Phags-pa script that was used during the Yuan Dynasty . The only surviving examplar of this dictionary is an 18th century manuscript copy that belonged to Stephen Wootton Bushell , and is now...
(Yuan dynasty 'Phags-pa - Chinese rhyming dictionary) - Stephen Wootton BushellStephen Wootton BushellStephen Wootton Bushell CMG MD was an English physician and amateur Orientalist who made important contributions to the study of Chinese ceramics, Chinese numismatics and the decipherment of the Tangut script.-Biography:...
Unicode
'Phags-pa script was added to the UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Standard in July, 2006 with the release of version 5.0.
The Unicode block for 'Phags-pa is U+A840–U+A877. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:
External links
- Andrew WestAndrew WestAndrew Christopher West is an English Sinologist. He initially devoted himself to studying Chinese novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties...
, BabelStone: Phags-pa Script (with free fonts) - Omniglot: Phags-pa script
- Ancientscripts: hPhags-pa
- Mongolian characters after Kublai Khan